A film lacking Herzog's USP -- an ironic and regressive sense of the irreducible power of images -- 'Invincible' feels as though it has been devised by a scholar steeped in Herzog lore, but who at some crucial early stage mistook him for Istvan Szabo.

| Sep 28, 2006

There's a sugar coating to the way Papale's story unfolds, but not so much that you'll spoil your dinner.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Sep 16, 2006

Even Papale's most famous play, recovering a fumble to set up a touchdown, is embellished, as if Disney can't bear to stick with the facts.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/5 | Aug 25, 2006

When it's good it's very good. When it's bad -- well, it's still pretty good.

| Aug 25, 2006

Invincible is a working-class jock Cinderella fantasy with the sincerity of a beer commercial, the soul of a Republican incumbent, and the designer-flannel esthetics of an old Bruce Springsteen video.

| Original Score: 1.5/4 | Aug 25, 2006

It may not break new ground, but Invincible is an entertaining film, awash in clichs but leavened by the charismatic performance of Mark Wahlberg as Vince Papale.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Aug 25, 2006

What's modestly refreshing about the way this story is told by director Eric Core and writer Brad Gann, is that the person with the largest doubts about going pro is Papele himself.

| Aug 25, 2006

It's a hard-earned humanity that gives Invincible its vigor.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Aug 25, 2006

The movie is shamelessly manipulative.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Aug 25, 2006

Wahlberg and his co-stars, including love interest Elizabeth Banks, really seem to believe in the story, with a grave intensity that enhances its underdog appeal.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Aug 25, 2006

Credit Invincible with varying the Disney formula just a bit. While still a "feel good" movie, it's a dark and miserable road that must be traveled along the way.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Aug 25, 2006

As much as I wanted to root for Invincible, its protagonist comes across as neither ebullient nor vivacious.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Aug 25, 2006

Invincible is as much a period piece as it is a sports movie, complete with a non-stop soundtrack of familiar hits that, unfortunately, makes one think of That '70s Show a little too often

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | Aug 25, 2006

They're [Disney] not looking to make a complex, textured analysis of competition and ambition here, they just want a football movie that ends with the audience cheering for the hero.

| Original Score: B- | Aug 25, 2006

For a movie about following your dreams, this one is sorely lacking imagination.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | Aug 25, 2006

The most remarkable accomplishment of Invincible is to make a mid-'70s musical soundtrack sound spectacular.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Aug 25, 2006

The genre shows serious signs of wear in this needlessly fictionalized feature about Vince Papale, a 30-year-old bartender who improbably won a spot on the Philadelphia Eagles in 1976.

| Aug 25, 2006

Wahlberg and the rest of the solid cast sell this ESPN equivalent of a Lifetime movie.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Aug 25, 2006

There's a danger in reducing pictures like this to the sum of their lessons, at the expense of recognizing them as satisfying, if flawed, genre exercises.

| Aug 25, 2006

Put simply, this movie works, and if your heart doesn't beat heartily in appreciation than you better go to a doctor because you just might be dead.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Aug 25, 2006